The present invention relates to storing pieces cut out from a lay-up made of superposed plies of flexible sheet material; in particular woven cloth.
A preferred field of application of the invention is that of the clothing industry. In this industry, production is organized in particular around a cutting workshop having at least one automatic cutting machine, and a makeup workshop where articles are assembled, stitched, and finished.
Usually, at the outlet from the cutting machine, operations are performed to separate the pieces that have been cut out from the cutting scrap (lay-up skeleton), to sort the cutout pieces and optionally to mark them, and to package the cutout pieces in packets that are coherent for the makeup workshop.
As a result packets of pieces are handled twice: once in the cutting workshop where they are packaged, and again on being received in the makeup workshop where the packaging is removed. In addition, the cost of packaging is considerable because of the large number of pieces in a lay-up.
Other problems can be encountered, such as packets of pieces becoming lost, particularly packets of smallsized pieces, and accidental breakage of packets that can lead to pieces being lost or damaged. These problems become even more worrying when, as is more and more the case, the operations of cutting-out and making-up are performed on sites that are geographically remote from each other. Thus, there are businesses that perform custom cutting for various clients who are not necessarily located nearby. The same also happens when, for reasons of labor costs, making up is performed remotely, with the cutout pieces being taken to distant countries.
An object of the invention is to solve these problems, and to this end the invention provides a method of storing pieces that have been cut out from a lay-up, in which method, once the pieces have been cut out from the lay-up, the entire lay-up is packaged, without separating the cutout pieces from the scrap.
Thus, and contrary to conventional practice, the cutout pieces are not separated from the remainder or xe2x80x9cskeletonxe2x80x9d of the lay-up on leaving the cutting machine. The packaged lay-up is taken to a makeup workshop so that the lay-up is taken apart on being received in the makeup workshop. The stacks of cutout pieces or xe2x80x9cpilesxe2x80x9d are not handled twice, and the risk of loss or damage to a pile while it is being transported are eliminated.
Advantageously, the lay-up is packaged in the compressed state inside an air-tight covering, so as to reduce its size as much as possible.
Also advantageously, the lay-up is packaged inside a flexible covering which is rolled up and held in the rolled-up shape, so that the packaged lay-up can be stored and transported inside a rectangular container.
According to a feature of the method, the lay-up is associated with a data medium including at least some of the following information: information identifying the lay-up, information relating to the layout or to the layouts of the pieces cut out from the lay-up, and information relating to how the pieces are to be assembled. The information relating to the layout of pieces in the lay-up comprises information relating to the locations of the pieces and information identifying the pieces.
At least some of the information can appear on a label that is stuck to the lay-up or the covering in which it is packaged, and/or on a digital data medium such as a diskette which is packaged together with the lay-up or which is sent separately to the makeup workshop. It is also possible to use a telecommunications network to transfer digital information relating to a lay-up that has been shipped.